May 21, 2017

observations 5-21

Casting change for next week's Whipped Cream has been posted. Due to Herman Cornejo's injury, Jeffrey Cirio will substitute on Tuesday night. Let's hope that McKenzie doesn't drop to that very low default position and bring in guest artists for ANY of Herman's other performances. He should remove the struggling ballerinas whose performances were being carried by Herman in the first place and put in a crew who are actual ABT dancers and who can do the steps.

Whipped Cream is a delightful ballet well worth forking over the bucks to take all the kids you know to it. Haglund missed the Whipped Cream float that was driving around Manhattan yesterday, but the video of it looked pretty cute. Some of us are old enough to remember how the circus used to parade the elephants and clowns through the streets to drum up excitement for its big top circus show. What a thrill that was as a kid to see. The irony of yesterday's parade of ABT's characters was that it occurred on the weekend during which the Ringling Bros. circus comes to its fateful end. Its very last performance will be tonight at the Nassau Coliseum on Long Island.

From the video on ABT's social media page, it appeared that the Whipped Cream float might have been headed toward 9th Avenue yesterday where the 9th Avenue International Food Festival was in full swing with all its sugary funnel cakes, fried ice cream, chocolate covered crepes with powdered sugar and some of the world's best freakin' chicken empanadas from the famous Freakin' Puerto Rican Catering Company. All goodies will be available again today. Come on down to 9th Avenue!!!

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Casting for the tri-company performances of Jewels at the Lincoln Center Festival has been officially announced. The Paris Opera Ballet and the Bolshoi Ballet are treating us to more variety in the performances than New York City Ballet. What a shame that we will not see Maria Kowroski in one of the Diamonds performances. It's a real lesson to those of us who snapped up tickets to all five performances while anticipating variety.

While the casting doesn't mention the corps dancers for Emeralds, we hope to see some more of the beautiful Paris Opera Ballet dancers on stage. Welcome back, Paris Opera Ballet!

Comments

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So excited to see the casting for Jewels - I have tickets for Saturday night and am thrilled that Megan, Joaquin, and Tess are headlining Rubies. I do wish we could've been treated to Maria in Diamonds - I've only seen it performed by Sara and Wendy/Philip Neal back in the day (when Maria was partnered with Charles Askegard, so really way back when). Do you know if each company will use their own costumes? Can't wait!!!

Hi, NS. I don't know the answer to your question for certain, but I assume they will all be wearing their own costumes. They will be using the NYCB sets and the NYCB Orchestra with Andrew Litton conducting. I recall Martins speaking about how he explained to Litton that it was absolutely important to be accommodating to the POB's and Bolshoi's wishes.

This certainly is going to be an interesting set of performances. I'm not expecting to enjoy it as much as when I see any one of the companies do the whole ballet, but it sure will be interesting.

Herman has reported on his FB page that he incurred a calf injury but expects to return soon. That's good news. Let's hope that he doesn't come back too soon and ultimately blows out that calf completely.

I am coming form Canada to attend the Saturday evening performance of Jewels, and I am beside myself with excitement. This is a dream cast for an absolute masterpiece. My first performance at the ballet was when my father drove through a blizzard to take me to see NYCB when Baryshnikov was recently defected and the company was full of Balanchine's legendary dancers. This may be my next most favourite performance!